Huge crowds mourn Bangladesh’s first female prime minister at state funeral

Hundreds of thousands of people descended on Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Wednesday to pay their last respects to former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

Zia, who was the country’s first female prime minister, died on Tuesday of a prolonged illness. She was 80 years old.

Mourners held out their hands in prayer and carried flags printed with his photographs as a procession carrying Zia’s body – including the hearse wrapped in the national flag – drove through the streets near Parliament.

Flags were lowered to half-mast and thousands of security officers were deployed.

“I came all the way here just to say goodbye. I know I won’t be able to see his face, but at least I can see the [vehicle] carrying her for the last rites,” Setara Sultana, an activist for Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), told the BBC.

Sharmina Siraj, a mother of two, called Zia an “inspiration”, noting that allowances introduced by the former leader to improve women’s education had a “huge impact” on her daughters.

“It is difficult to imagine women in leadership positions in the near future,” she told the AFP news agency.

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, Pakistan National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Bhutanese Foreign Minister Lyonpo DN Dhungyel were among those who attended the funeral.

Earlier in the day, Zia’s body was taken to the home of her son Tarique Rahman, who was seen reciting the Quran next to his mother’s office.

The state funeral marks the end of Zia’s extraordinary journey from housewife to Bangladesh’s first female prime minister.

Zia will be buried next to her husband Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981 while serving as president – ​​an incident that propelled Zia into the political spotlight.

She then led the BNP in the country’s first elections in 20 years. She was called an “uncompromising leader” after refusing to participate in a controversial election during the military rule of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad in the 1980s.

For several years, alongside her political rival Sheikh Hasina, she fought for democracy and against military dictatorship, suffering arrests.

At the time, Bangladesh’s leaders were talking about keeping the two “warring queens” – Zia and Hasina – out of politics, in what was then known as the “minus two formula”.

But Zia eventually became prime minister, first in 1991 and then again in 2001.

In 2007, under the military-backed interim government, she remained in detention.

Over the past 16 years, under Hasnina’s Awami League government, Zia became the most important symbol of resistance to Hasina’s rule, which many considered a symbol of resistance. more and more autocratic.

Zia’s resilience has won admiration from her supporters, who say that despite various personal and political setbacks, years of opposition and convictions under the Hasina government, Zia never gave up, refused to compromise on her principles and stood her ground.

The fact that hundreds of thousands of people, including those who did not vote for his party, turned up for the funeral would be seen as a reflection of his popularity among the masses.

Those who worked with her remember a leader who asked probing questions while making key decisions. As economist Debapriya Bhattacharya noted, she left a lasting impression as “a political leader who valued ideas and valued informed decision-making.”

In her later years, she suffered from multiple health problems. Despite this, the BNP has said it intends to contest parliamentary elections in February 2026, when the country will vote for the first time since a popular revolution last year Hasina knocked down.

According to the party’s list of candidates released earlier this month, Zia was expected to contest in three constituencies.

The party is considering a return to power, and if that happens, his son is expected to become the country’s new leader. Rahman, 60, only returned to Bangladesh last week after 17 years of self-imposed exile in London.

“The country mourns the loss of a guiding presence who shaped its democratic aspirations,” Rahman said after his mother’s death on Tuesday.